


Fresh Meat

by angelheadedhipster



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Banter, Canon Divergence, M/M, long descriptions of accents and suits, someone tell major whats going on, summer in seattle?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 20:26:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13666674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedhipster/pseuds/angelheadedhipster
Summary: Major looks up at him, blue eyes light and clear, contrasting almost prettily with the dark reds and browns criss-crossing his face.Ravi blinks, and looks away. For a second there he...not sure what, honestly. He shakes his head, at himself, at Major, and keeps working.





	Fresh Meat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nitpickyabouttrains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitpickyabouttrains/gifts).



> Ok I wrote this for nitpickyabouttrains back in ...2015, and I watched the first season of iZombie for her so I could do it. Which was great! And then I wrote this, and I havent watched any more of the show so probably this makes no fucking sense and everything thats happened in the show since contradicts it, but, here we are, it exists anyway. Enjoy?
> 
> Happy Sunburn, babe, I love you!

_Fresh Meat_

 

Ravi doesn’t want to mention this, but it's been some time since he’s stitched up living flesh. As a general rule, he prefers his bodies immobile, unresponsive, and perhaps a bit less...personal.

“Easy,” Ravi says aloud. “You’re lucky you’re not dead.”

Major looks up at him, blue eyes light and clear, contrasting almost prettily with the dark reds and browns criss-crossing his face.

Ravi blinks, and looks away. For a second there he...not sure what, honestly. He shakes his head, at himself, at Major, and keeps working.

Major is a good patient, actually, lying calm and still on the slab, barely complaining. Almost as if he’s dead. But dead people don’t...don’t breathe like that, so determinedly. They don’t flinch when Ravi’s instruments come a little too close to their eyes, those long feathery eyelashes moving minutely, the skin twitching.

 _Focus_.

Ravi talks. Major responds, like he always does. It helps to keep things normal. For someone with this many bruises and lacerations, the man keeps up a good banter. It’s amazing how easy Major is to talk to, in almost any situation. He picks up everything Ravi puts down - quickly and with his own quirky little spin, and that sideways twitch of his mouth. Ravi tries to be extra careful going down Major’s left cheekbone. It’d be a shame to overcorrect and make that smile less lopsided.

Liv is here now, worrying, distracting him. _Focus, Ravi._ You know what to do here. Sutures begin at the base of the incision. Pay no attention to the pulse in his throat, the lines of his collarbone. To the zombie in the corner.

The zombie takes over, which is a relief. Ravi finds himself actually saying, out loud, “The man’s too good-looking.” He busies himself with work, answers the phone, hustles them all off, back to normal life, but not before he hears Major say, “Chicks dig scars,” and he wonders how else Major is scarred. He pictures lines of red running down Major’s back, Major’s heart. He shakes his head. They have the body of a three hundred pound shut in to deal with.

 

+++

It hurts less this time, Major thinks. Actually overall he hurts more, because this time he’s hurt all over his body, bruised and aching on a level he can practically feel in his bones. But the stitching hurts less, the antiseptic stings less this time. Maybe he’s getting used to it, to Ravi’s hands on his face, gentle but steady. Careful. Reassuring.

Ravi had been joking about Major putting him on retainer, but it doesn't sound like the worst thing. If Major keeps doing what needs to be done - and he will, there is absolutely nothing that will stop him now - he might get hurt again. He probably _will_ get hurt again. Not that he cares about what happens to himself, but free medical care is a nice thing.

And it feels almost good to put himself in someone else’s hands. Ravi isn’t talking much, focusing on what he’s doing, not joking with him as much. Maybe Major really does look worse this time. But he feels okay, at least right now. He can let go a little bit, here. Let someone else help him. Turn off some of his anger and his sense of injustice and that burning drive that’s with him all the time, and just have someone touch him, take care of him. Ravi is nice like that. He’s easy to talk to and he’s so funny, and he has great taste in TV and video games.  He looks so fascinating like this, his eyes completely focused on the task at hand. Ravi’s eyes are dark, and he’s biting his lip.

This was worth getting thrown in jail for.

Major thinks about Peyton, can imagine her striding into the station in her power suit and her perfect hair, berating the guard and getting him released. He starts to smile, his eyes crinkling in an almost laugh, and Ravi tsks, makes a noise, as the structure of his temples moves almost imperceptibly. Major looks at him, and Ravi doesn’t look back, just lightly swats him on the shoulder. A spot that isn’t bruised or bleeding, Major notices.

“Keep still,” Ravi says, his voice low. “I am doing my best, you know, but I’m not really supposed to be doing this.”

Major isn’t sure he agrees, but he keeps still.

That was the first time Ravi had ever met Peyton, which was almost hard to believe. Major had been sort of distracted by the pain and the police at the time, but he’d seen his friend’s eyes when he looked at the perfection that was Peyton, caught the little glimmer in Ravi’s eyes. It wasn’t that dissimilar to the look he got when attacking a high level boss, but darker. Spicier, almost, although it was maybe racist to think that about someone Indian?

So that was what Ravi looked like when he liked someone, Major thinks. Now he knows. He isn’t sure why he needed to know that, but now he does. It’s a good look on Ravi..

Peyton is a lucky girl.

 

+++

Ravi walks in the door with, he knows, an absolutely insufferable look on his face. It’s a look that says ‘I, the great Ravi Chakrabarti, shagged a girl who is gorgeous and smart and funny and _she_ likes _me_ , too, take that, Olivia Moore, and now I am going to pass out, content in the knowledge of a job well done.’

There’s no one there to see it when he walks into the living room, though. Which is probably for the best.

Major’s messenger bag is hanging by the door, though, so he must be home. Ravi almost can’t believe how relieved that makes him feel. Major in the psych ward...It was bad enough that he had been there for all the wrong reasons, that Liv wouldn’t, for lack of a better term, man up and tell him the truth. But even aside from the reasoning, Ravi had missed him. The house felt empty without Major. Colder, somehow. He’s only been back for a day, but already Ravi feels warmer.

“Major?” Ravi says, walking down the hallway.

“Oh, hey,” says Major’s voice, from his room. As usual, he’s at his computer. Ravi has a suspicion he knows what Major is researching on that computer all the time, but he doesn’t look at the screen. He never looks.

Major looks smaller now, and his eyes are a little sunken in. He lost weight in the psych ward, it seems, and the lines of his bones are more pronounced now. The sleeves on his jumper are too long, ragged at the edges. It’s too warm for a jumper anyway. Ravi almost wants to scoop him up and hug him, warm him up.

“Welcome home,” Ravi says instead, which would have to be enough.

Major isn’t quite meeting his eye, his head ducking, those piercing blue eyes flashing to the side. “Thanks, I...it’s nice to be. Out,” he says.

And starts to turn away.

Ravi isn’t sure what’s happening. Major is home, Major is back. Major is supposed to be his again, his friend, his house mate. If exciting things happen and Major isn’t there to hear about them, do they happen at all?

Searching for something to stay, to keep him listening, Ravi says, “That was fun. Last night, I mean.”

“Yeah,” says Major. “I mean...I mean...yeah.” He licks his lips. “How was Peyton?” he asks, and his voice is thin, he’s looking at the ground. “I’m sorry for crashing,” he says, not sounding sorry.

Ravi’s mouth opens, but then he pauses. Seconds ago he’d been bursting to tell Major everything awesome that happened with Peyton and all the awesome stuff they did and all the awesome stuff he got to do to her, but now he finds he doesn’t want to tell Major at all. “I’m just glad you’re back, y'know?” Ravi says.

“Me, too,” says Major. “How are you?” he asks, and some of the sweetness and care comes back into his face, a face that looked so drawn and dark without them. “Did you get any sleep?”

Ravi stops himself from grinning and just nods. Major finally smiles, and Ravi feels a great sweeping wave of relief. Maybe they are themselves, again, nothing really changed. He smiles back, and Major’s grin gets a little wider.

Ravi starts to back out of the room, and Major’s eyes half follow him, half turn back to his laptop. It’s his Major, for sure. He’s back. But there’s a fire in his eyes now, a question and a hunger. And Ravi isn’t sure what it's for anymore.

 

+++

“I wanted to run something by you,” Ravi says, and there’s a flicker of something in Major’s stomach. “Uh, it’s a bit personal,” Ravi continues. “Feeling a bit weird about it, but here goes,” and now Major is feelng someting more than a flicker. He’s not sure what it is - worried, desperate? Excited, wanting, scared?

Major deflects and evades as Ravi talks, he knows he’s doing it, especially when he realizes this is about Peyton. Major knows he’s being weird and vague, he’s not sure where this is going. He’s not sure he can handle where this is going.

Ravi is standing there in front of him, tall and sleek and talking in that accent and he’s like chocolate or wood smoke, rich and strong and safe and powerful. Major knows he’s started obsessing in the past week or two. He knows his constant focus on the deaths, on the missing kids - its not normal. He knows he’s not thinking right. These days most of his mind is consumed with justice and brains and zombies and guns, evil and darkness. But the rest of him has been consumed by thoughts of Ravi’s hands, careful and gentle on his forehead, Ravi’s long legs wearing pajama pants that could just be pulled down in a second, Ravi ruffling his beard when he worries.

Major lets himself get the question out, goes for calculating but casual. “How good do you look in the suit?”

“Pretty damn good,” says Ravi, and the way he cocks his head to the side when he says it, that just shouldn’t be allowed.

Major breathes and looks Ravi right in the eye for a moment. “Do it.”

Ravi’s walking away now and Major hasn't been sleeping right, or almost at all, that’s his excuse, and he’s cooped up in this house and the world is going crazy around him so that’s why he says what he does, which is - “Hey...can I see it?”

Ravi stops for a second, and when he turns around his face is serious, considering, and Major’s heart stutters because maybe actually Ravi heard what he didn’t say, what he wanted to say. But then there’s a moment, and Ravi’s face gets jokey again and he says, “Sure, why not?”

Major can’t think of anything to do with himself in these next few minutes, while Ravi goes upstairs to change. What had he been doing before? What is he ever doing?

Ravi clomps down the stairs, he sounds like an elephant, probably because he’s tall and there’s just that _presence_ to him. He’s knotting the tie and at first Major’s eyes are drawn to that, to the long fingers, the conscientious nails.

Wait - whoa.

Ravi _does_ look good in the suit. It ups the ‘debonair’ factor on him that's often right under the surface, covered by bad puns and clipboards. He looks classy and shiny and rich and perfect, like James Bond or a coiled tiger. Major mostly wants to rip the suit off him, but he can also admire how the lines work, the tapered legs, the dark luxurious color of the fabric.

He walks closer and looks. Ravi is grinning, and there’s an energy in his eyes, a glimmer of something that dances. Not nervousness, but anticipation. Major decides he likes that look. Ravi is rarely off guard, in his usual life, dead bodies and fluids in labs. Major is usually the one who catches him unsettled, and, sometimes, Major is the reason for it. It’s fun to think that he can make Ravi feel that way, make him off kilter. Major so often feels off kilter himself these days

Ravi’s eyes track him and Major makes a show of looking at the suit, the lines and the cut, the tie, but he is really looking at Ravi, letting himself look in a way he usually doesn’t. Ravi is watching him look and Major can’t be imagining this, he’s not imagining this. He’s not crazy. Or, if he is crazy, its because he’s hallucinating zombies, but Ravi doesn’t look like a zombie to him. He looks...like a predator. Curious, and hungry.

Major dated Liv for a long time but he has also dated other people, other girls, other boys. He knows how this works. He’s not blind and he’s not an idiot. He knows what he sees.  Ravi’s face, his eyes meeting Major’s - he knows what it means.

There are so few things right in the world right now, Major thinks. There’s something very, very wrong at the core, something evil and destructive and unnatural that can’t be allowed to continue. There’s so little he’s sure of, and Major knows he probably won’t survive what he’s planning to do in the next few days.

So why not. Why not have this.

He’s standing behind Ravi’s shoulder now, and he leans forward. His breath is ghosting against Ravi’s shoulder blade. Where the wings come out, as a patient of his once called it.

Ravi shivers, and shifts his weight.

Major’s hand skitters over Ravi’s hip and he can feel the muscles underneath bunching and contracting, warm under his fingers, and he knows that reaction. Ravi’s head turns towards his and he’s not looking at him, their eyes aren’t quite meeting at this angle but its almost more exciting that way, and Major leans forward and Ravi does too, a little -

And then Ravi backs away, all the way away, his eyes wide. Major’s fingers are drumming the air, his heart is racing.

“Peyton,” Ravi says, practically gasps the word out, and he leaves, he basically runs out of the room.

Major watches him.

The world is wrong, there is an evil at the heart of it, an imbalance. Major will fix it. It’s the only thing that matters.

 

+++

Ravi’s still wearing that blasted Jimmy Stewart suit, he realizes, as he literally runs into the back door of MeatCute. It’s locked, obviously, of course it’s locked, he wasn’t even thinking. But Ravi was a bit of a bolshie in his youth, and he learned how to pick locks, and this lock is crap anyway. He slows down, slows his heart rate, lets his fingers do the work, like on a particularly tricky extraction, but it’s much harder, he’s so damn worried. Finally it clicks and the door blows open and he runs in. His heart is pounding in his ears, sweat under his collar.

Major is there yes yes yes Major is there, he’s ok, he’s alive. He’s strung up from the ceiling with meat hooks - that’s clever, butcher shop, right - and duct tape. His eyes are open and he doesn’t look that bloody, not this time, just tired. A thousand thoughts start running through Ravi’s head and not all of them are about getting Major down and saving him, a rather startling number are about leaving him like that and what else he could do and Major’s wide wide eyes.

“Absolutely not the time, that is _completely_ inappropriate.” Ravi actually says it under his breath as he takes his knife out of his pocket and cuts the tape around Major’s wrists. Major falls against him, he can feel the other man’s heart racing. Major looks scared but determined, his arms are lead weights against Ravi’s chest, wrists red where the tape was. Ravi rips the duct tape off Major’s mouth and Major winces, his eyes going shut and his teeth biting down on his lower lip. There are about a million things to say or ask or do that would be good and normal at this moment but instead Ravi kisses him, hard.

There’s no hesitation or surprise or even a pause before Major is kissing him back, fierce and sloppy, all the breath going out of the sides of his mouth. Ravi tastes adhesive, worries some about the abrasions at the corners of Major’s lips but mostly doesn’t. He moves Major’s wrists around, forward, till he’s cradling him against his chest and kissing him intensely and Major is definitely definitely definitely kissing him back. His tongue is exploring Ravi’s mouth, running under his lips. This is insane, Ravi thinks. He tastes blood.

Ravi pulls back, incrementally, and it's maybe the hardest thing he’s done all day but this is crazy, they’re in Blaine’s butcher shop and someone undead is probably is going to come in and kill them soon.

Major licks his lips, his eyes are burning stars and his breath is coming fast. “Ok,” he says. “How’d you find me?”

“What the fucking fuck are you fucking doing?” Ravi responds, and Major starts to laugh.

Ravi kisses him again, slightly slower this time but with no less desperation. Major’s hands and arms are pinned between them, one of Ravi’s hands holding both wrists in place, his thumb rubbing along the abrasions where the tape was. Ravi’s other hand snakes out, clasping the back of Major’s neck, drawing him closer, wanting more more more. Major is pliant in his hands, soft and relenting, but then he pulls against Ravi, shifting Ravi’s arm around his shoulder and the words “all conference strong safety for the Washington Huskies, baby” flash through Ravi’s head. He tightens his hands on Major’s and Major pulls Ravi’s bottom lip out with his teeth and the world around them whites out, there’s only this.

They do that for rather a long time.

This time it’s Major who pulls back and Ravi who doesn’t let him, chases his lips with his own, trapping Major’s face between his head and his hand so he can kiss down his jawline, stubbled skin over bone. Major is breathing hard. When Ravi finally lets him go and looks at him, his eyes are the brightest Ravi has ever seen, an almost electric blue. Like the sky before a storm, like a computer screen at night.

“We should go,” Ravi says, because it’s true, and because none of the other things he wants to say are remotely apropos to the situation.

“Oh?” says Major, and he laughs again, and his teeth are so very white and he looks really happy. Ravi did that, he realizes. Ravi made Major look that happy and he’s so so glad, he can’t believe how thrilled that makes him feel.

“Well, for one thing, my knees are falling asleep,” Ravi says, starting to stand and wincing as pins and needles fill his calves and ankles. “For another, some people at this establishment tied you to meat hooks and I imagine they won’t be completely thrilled to come back and find their art installation disassembled.”

Ravi is standing now and Major is still on the floor, legs crooked up in front of him, arms on his knees. He looks so fucking cute.

“What time is it, anyway?” says Major.

“Nearly 5 am,” Ravi says, and he’s straightening the damn suit up now, noticing blood on the sleeve. He looks at his watch, which reminds him - “So, I, uh, I wanted to tell you about Peyton but you didn’t answer your phone, so I used Find My Friends. To answer your earlier question. That’s how I got to you.”

Major cocks an eyebrow at him. “Petyon?” he asks. He’s still grinning. Ravi wants to….well, Ravi wants to do a lot of things. One is pick Major up, just like that, and put him in his pocket and run off with him.

“We have to get out of here,” Ravi says. He doesn’t want to talk about Peyton, or about any of this. He wants to be kissing Major or stripping his clothes off at this exact moment, and they can’t do that in a zombie butcher shop. Its hard to remember that, though, face to face with those eyes and those wide soft lips, which Ravi now knows for a fact are capable of amazing things.

“Ah,” says Major. “Actually, I’m going to stay here.”

“You what.”

Major sighs, and now he looks away; for the first time since Ravi walked in he’s not meeting his eyes. “I want to look around a little more, while no one’s here. I still don’t understand what’s going on in this place, why they have brains, what it has to do with Jerome. I want to see.”

Ravi’s thoughts feel like they are being pushed very fast through very small tubes. He’s still not sure how much Major knows, and there’s no way they can stay here, but Major has a look in his eye, a look Ravi is getting used to seeing. ‘Determined’ isn’t even a strong enough word for it. And then there is a very distracting part of Ravi’s brain that is seeing Major’s determination and wondering what it would take to overcome that. And what would happen if he did. And what he could do then.

“I’m not leaving you here,” Ravi says. “We’re leaving, and you’re coming with me.”

“Five minutes, tops,” says Major. “And then we can go home.” His eyes darken slightly on “home” and Ravi can’t think, there’s no blood going to his brain, his entire pelvic area is tingling.

Which is probably why he doesn’t hear the door behind them open.

“No five minutes,” Ravi says. “Now!”

Ravi does hear the footsteps on the floor, and he sees Major’s eyes shift and widen as they see something behind him.

“Major,” Ravi says, and he’s whispering, urgent.  “Promise me. Get out. If I can’t get you out, you have to get out.”

Major’s eyes have widened even more, and they’re so blue.

“Major!” Ravi whisper shouts. He wants to run, he wants to get out, but he wants Major to be safe even more.

“I promise, I promise!” Major says.

Ravi turns to run, but its too late. He has time for only one thought in the moment between realizing its Blaine behind him and being hit on the head, and its not about what he and Major could do when they get home, or even what he wants to do to Blaine right now. It’s, “of all the possibilities in all the universes, why couldn’t we have slow zombies?”

 

+++

Major is lying in bed, his hair half white and his blood pulsing in his ears. Liv was gone, Ravi...he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know where anyone is, he doesn’t know what anyone is, he didn’t know what he is.

Outside, the sun is out. Strong enough that he can’t look at the window, even with the blinds down.

Blaine - he knew the name now, but still thought of him as “that bleached asshole” in his head - had come back, had knocked Ravi out. He had seen that Major wasn’t tied up, and had put him in the freezer. And after that...after that there wasn’t much worth remembering.

Major isn’t completely sure what he’d been thinking before Ravi showed up. When he’d first walked into that butcher shop -- been dragged, actually -- he didn’t think he’d leave it alive. And that had been fine. He felt fine. It wasn’t ideal, obviously, but it was worth it. Ridding the world of those people, that horrible scheme, that evil - it would be worth it. It was what Major’s life was for.

Now he isn’t sure.

He had done his research, bought his supplies, had his plan. His roommate and best friend, who he’d been fixated on and obsessing over for months, showing up and kissing the living daylights out of him - that hadn’t been part of the plan. And then the arrival of his ex-fiance who was now a zombie, and her turning him into a zombie and then maybe, maybe unturning him with an untested cure that her boss, who was also the aforementioned kissing roommate, had only recently discovered...

There were some things you couldn’t plan for.

And he doesn’t know if he is supposed to be alive or not now.

He doesn’t know if he is alive or not, right now.

He isn’t sure if he wants to be alive or not.

The light seems so bright. Summer was coming, or what passed for summer in Seattle. Bright sun for a few hours in the middle of the day, a few days a week. It almost hurts to look at it.

Did that mean he was a zombie, still? Major has no idea.

He feels cold. The wound in his stomach is sore, and he aches all over. Is that the zombie leaving his blood? Or the zombie taking over? Or some other side effect of this untested cure, turning him into...a mouse or a vampire or just a very sick person, who knows. Was there any way of knowing what was going to happen? He should ask Ravi next time he saw him, ask him if there were symptoms to watch out for.

Ravi.

Major rolls half over, away from the sun. Think about the sun, he commands himself. Think about summer, a neutral topic. Something happy. Sun, the ocean. The beach. Picnics in the park. Popsicles. Brainsicles?

He half smiles at that one. He’d have to tell …

He hasn’t seen Ravi since everything had happened. The only person he’d seen was Liv, and he really didn’t want to see her any more. Maybe ever, but definitely not for now. When they’d dated he’d known she was a bit of a control freak, but back then it was nothing they couldn’t work through. But there is controlling and then there is the decision to change his entire humanity, twice, without asking him. He doesn’t want to see Liv.

Ravi...he wants to see Ravi. Wants to see him so badly and touch him and hear him laugh, and feel those hands on his wrists, on everything…

He stops himself, again. This is what he’d done today. Worried about whether he was a zombie or not, whether he wanted to be a zombie or not. Tried not to think about Ravi. Thinking about Ravi was dangerous.

Seafair. The sun on the ferry to Bainbridge. Kayaking. Hiking. Swimming. Swimsuits.

If he is a zombie, he could be with Liv. He’d wanted that back for so long.

Flip flops. Water parks. The Fourth of July. Barbeques. BrainBQs?

He laughs out loud at that one. That one he’d definitely tell Ravi, it was too stupid not to, Ravi would love it.

Major closes his eyes against the sunlight, and gives in.

If he isn’t a zombie, if he’s human, he can have Ravi. Again and again, in every position and combination he could think of, and probably a few he couldn’t; Ravi seems like a man with some ideas. He has tried not to think about it because when he does it takes him over, and it’s dangerous. All he can see is Ravi, naked and smiling at him. Ravi curled next to him, sleepy and post-coital and kissing his forehead. Ravi, fully clothed and staring down at Major, naked and strapped to a bed, a slow smile spreading across his face.

Stop it, Major thinks. Fantasies, imagination. Ravi is a bit mad at him, that he is sure of. Major had gone to the shop, and then Ravi had come after him and gotten himself knocked out. He could have gotten himself killed. Major did, in fact, get himself killed.

How mad would Ravi be, Major wonders. What would he do, if he was that mad. What would he make Major do.

He doesn’t have specifics now, just body parts and glimpses and heat spreading throughout his body, the bandages on his stomach feeling slick against his skin. Ravi’s eyes, Ravi’s hands, Ravi’s lips. His own hands, in fists. That feeling of contentment and safety that he felt when Ravi was around, when Ravi was taking care of him. Letting Ravi…

His dick twitches, under wrappings and blankets and who knows what. Redness seeped in around the edges of his vision.

Major turns back towards the sun, stares straight at it. Sun. Summer. Sunscreen. Beach. Heat. Light.

The sun shines back and does not reply.

  
  



End file.
